A common method for producing noodles basically includes the steps of: mixing and kneading noodle ingredients, such as flour and starch, to form a noodle dough; rolling out the noodle dough to form a noodle belt having a predetermined thickness; and cutting the noodle belt with a noodle string cutting device into linear noodle strings each having a predetermined thickness to produce fresh noodle strings. Then, the fresh noodle strings are subjected to a necessary process step, such as a cutting process or a steam-boiling process, depending on the form of an end product, such as fresh noodles, dried noodles, steamed noodles, or instant noodles.
In the case of the steamed noodles and the instant noodles, the steam-boiling process almost always needs to be carried out after cutting the noodle dough into the noodle strings. The noodle string cutting device and a steam-boiling device are arranged with a noodle string conveyor interposed therebetween, so that these steps are consecutively carried out. Thus, the conveyance of the noodles is automated.
The noodle string cutting device used for conventional instant noodles produces desired bent noodles as follows: a pair of cutting blade rolls are provided horizontally or provided so as to be suitably inclined with respect to each other; guide tubes are provided just under the cutting blade rolls so as to extend in a vertical direction or to be inclined backwardly with respect to a proceeding direction of the noodle string conveyor; the cut noodle strings are caused to slightly get stuck in the guide tubes to be bent; and the bent noodle strings are guided to the conveyor disposed under the guide tubes; and the noodle strings each having a bent shape (wave shape) are moved to the steam-boiling device (see Patent Document 1 for example).
Also known is a noodle shape forming device configured such that the cut noodle strings are swung by a roller (tubular body), and the noodles each having an arbitrary wave shape are mounted on the conveyor (see Patent Document 2).
In order to industrially mass-produce the instant noodles and reduce costs, such as a land cost, it is ideal to reduce a manufacturing line as short as possible and reduce an installation space. Here, since the noodle strings are caused to slightly get stuck in the guide tubes to each form the wave shape as above, the noodle strings are densely stacked on the conveyor. Therefore, a physical length of the manufacturing line can be shortened. In this case, the cut speed of the noodle string coming out from the cutting blade is lower than the speed of the conveyor. In recent years, consumer preferences are becoming diversified, and there is an increasing demand for instant noodles that are so-called “straight noodles” whose noodle strings are less wavy and substantially linear. Known examples of a method for producing straight noodle strings having no wave shapes are a method for setting the speed of the conveyor to be close to the cut speed of the noodle string coming out from the cutting blade and a method for cutting the noodle strings hanging from the cutting blade in a vertically downward direction and moving the noodle strings to the next step.